IT WAS a delight to read the letter from my newly-found near neighbours, John Harrop and Charles Dodsworth, concerning monorails in Oxford, especially as they both endured me in their classes in the 1960s at Magdalen College School, where they were always stimulating and interesting.

They haven’t changed!

I thought I was a railway enthusiast but the Indian monorail system they outlined is new to me.

It seems to resemble the spectacularly unsuccessful Listowel and Ballybunion monorail system which briefly existed in Ireland.

Today's Letters

The trouble with that was that running round the train, or even using a junction, required cumbersome movement of a whole section of track. Moreover, loads had to be carefully balanced on either side of the central rail, otherwise the vehicles would tilt unnervingly.

Sadly, I don’t think battery power would overcome the grades on either of the two routes proposed.

The erstwhile electric bus which some 20 years ago ran on an inner city route round the university areas used to need frequent charging and could not be trusted on a longer route or over extended periods of time.

Four miles an hour doesn’t seem much worth paying for, either, unless you think that third class riding is better than first class walking.

Sadly, I fear the whole scheme would go the way of the rickshaws in which perspiring students pedalled tourists a decade or so ago – but it’s certainly an interesting idea.

Finally, Bob Stanier, Head of MCS when we were all there, knew a thing or two about transport: his uncle, Sir William Stanier, designed the hugely successful Coronation Pacific express locomotives, which dominated the West Coast route to Scotland for a quarter of a century.

Sorry, Sirs!

MARTIN ROBERTS

Stone Close,

Botley,

Oxford